No fewer than five universities have adopted a Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) score of 200 as the minimum cut-off mark for candidates seeking admission into such institutions for the 2017/2018 academic session.
This is even as it has been discovered that about 23 universities submitted 120
as their cut-off mark at the Joint Consultative Meeting between the Joint Matriculation and Admissions Board (JAMB) and heads of tertiary institutions which held penultimate week.
Findings by The AUTHORITY also showed that some polytechnics and colleges of education, even asked for as low as 100 marks for admission during the same academic session.
The institutions that adopted 200 cut-off marks were University of Benin, Edo State; University of Lagos, Lagos State; University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu State; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State and University of Ibadan, Oyo State. All the other universities adopted lower cut-off marks.
These facts which was obtained by The AUTHORITY, also showed that 200 was the highest cut-off mark adopted by any institution under the flexible admission policy recently agreed upon by stakeholders in the higher education sector.
It was also revealed that Federal University, Gashua, Yobe State, opted for the least cut-off mark of 140 among the federal-owned universities, while Lagos State University cut-off mark of 190 is the highest among state universities.
180 cut-off mark submitted by the Federal Polytechnic, Nekede, Imo State, is the highest among the polytechnics in the country, while 110 chosen by the Tansian University, Oba, Anambra State, is the lowest among universities (private and public) in the country.
Meanwhile, a report from competent sources have revealed that the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN), Kwara State, received the highest number of admission applications from candidates who sat for this year’s UTME.
UNILORIN, which is ‘immune’ to the frequent strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), received applications from 104,038 student-applicants. The figure represents almost about 10 per cent of the 1,212,818 total applicants seeking admissions into federal universities in Nigeria.
University of Ilorin’s figure is followed by the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, with students applicant of 89,688 and University of Benin with 85,486 applicants, while University of Nigeria, Nsukka, is fourth with 79,073 applicants and University of Lagos fifth with 78,899.
At the other end of the list for federal universities admission, Federal University, Dutsima, Katsina State and Federal University, Gashua, Yobe State, rank 38th and 39th with student application of 3807 and 1897 respectively.
Equally, information obtained by our reporter showed that higher institutions in the country had last year asked JAMB to regularize the admission of 49,426 students whose admission did not follow due process. A federal university in the North West zone is a major culprit in this anomaly with 1,527 of such regularization requests emanating from it.
According to JAMB Registrar, Prof. Ishaq Oloyode, it was this type of bizarre admission procedure that prompted JAMB to approve a downward review of cut-off marks so that only prospective students that met the minimum criteria would be offered admission, instead of bringing in students with terribly low scores for admission regularization at the expense of students with higher scores.
The AUTHORITY recalls that JAMB and other stakeholders had during the recent Combined Policy Meeting in Abuja pegged admission cut-off mark at 120 and above and 100 to 180 for universities and polytechnics respectively. The decision has general.
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